In recent years, the amount of electronic information available to a user has increased exponentially. Some estimates indicate that a user device, such as smartphone or tablet, has potential access to petabytes of information. The increased availability of information has important advantages and created novel services and systems. However, valuable and beneficial use of information demands improved techniques to search, aggregate, and present data. Techniques that synthesize and filter information before it is presented to a user are necessary to manage large data sets and create useful services. These techniques are particularly important when users utilize mobile devices. Mobile devices normally have a limited screen size and restricted user interaction options. Therefore, methods and systems for clear and efficient presentation of information in mobile devices are of utmost importance. In addition, effective use and presentation of information in mobile devices require efficient communication protocols and methods. Information feeding a user device may come from a plurality of locations and a seamless interaction with the different information sources is increasingly important.
Object-oriented graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are an alternative for displaying and manipulating information. Object-oriented GUIs normally uses a plurality of graphical objects on the screen, such as icons and windows, which may quickly present information to the user. Furthermore, each graphical object may be associated with a different information provider and the GUI compiles information from multiple sources. Even though the use of graphical objects on the screen improves information presentation, the abilities of current user devices are underutilized when graphical objects only present information. Current user devices have access to complementary information through networks quickly providing additional information to the user. Also, current devices can communicate with other devices and give or receive instructions. Therefore, GUI generation methods that exploit these abilities may improve the user experience by providing additional opportunities from mere information display. There is a pressing need to address shortcomings of current object-oriented GUI generation methods and incorporate user interaction mechanisms, such as hypermedia elements or functions that facilitate further queries and/or communications.
In view of the shortcomings of current methods for object-oriented GUI generation, improved systems and methods for generation of GUIs on mobile devices are presented.